05/29/2026
Final Week of Mental Health Awareness Month by Lorraine Gardner, MSW
As May wraps up, it’s time for us also to end our symbolic awareness of Mental Health Awareness Month. We’ve looked at a variety of topics that contribute to our mental health – CONNECTEDNESS, MINDFULNESS, SAVORING and PHYSICAL HEALTH. What do you notice about all these words? They are all focused on the PRESENT. They encourage us pay attention to what is going on NOW in our lives - with the people around us and how we use our minds and bodies in our day-to-day lives.
Traditional mental health treatments often focused on the past – dealing with past event and reframing them, or coming to better understand what happened, is a hallmark of psychological treatment. In “The Body Keeps the Score” author Bessel van der Kolk explains how trauma reshapes the brain, mind and body. This seminal work focused on how healing can and does take place. This work directly led to trauma-based therapies designed to reconnect the mind and body. Here are few examples to explore if you are interested: Somatic Experiences, Trauma sensitive Yoga, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), Tapping Therapy (Emotional Freedom Technique – EFT), Neurofeedback, Play and Drama Therapy, Internal Family Systems and Narrative Therapy. These are just a few therapies that can be helpful.
Healing and understanding what has happened in our past, with what is going on with our present day lives, can be an important tool for healing. Especially, if you are experiencing negative consequences of present-day behaviors or feelings - drug and alcohol abuse, depression, anxiety, lack of motivation to pursue healthy habits, etc.
“You take your baggage with you” refers to carrying unresolved past experiences or emotional pain into your present life. “Wherever you go, there you are” implies we can’t escape ourselves. Coming to terms with who and how we are- ACCEPTANCE- is mental health work of the present. Change is possible with awareness and effort but is not aways the solution.
For our final exercise in mental health, I’d like to shift to focus on the PAST with a lens of GRATITUDE. This doesn’t mean we ignore trauma or forget it. This is only a practice of searching for, finding, acknowledging and feeling the pleasure of gratitude over real things that happened in our recent hours of life – Oprah Winfrey and Brene Brown frequently emphasize gratitude as a transformative daily practice. In “Atlas of the Heart, Brown says, “Gratitude is a collection of small moments of grace that remind us of the goodness in life. Gratitude is not just a feeling, It’s a practice. Gratitude is a powerful tool for cultivating joy and resilience. “
HOW TO PRACTICE GRATITUDE:
At the end of the day (most people do this before they go to sleep for the night) either write down a short list of what you are grateful for or tell someone or just think of three things. It’s a bit more effective as practice, if you write them down as the brain gets feedback from the physical act of writing and then more feedback through your own eyes - from seeing the words
If this is difficult for you at first, one trick is to write down all the things you did today. Instead of the “TO DO” list write a list - “WHAT I DID TODAY”. Then circle what you are grateful for. You can be grateful for breathing, for walking, for talking, for the patience to listen to someone else, for being able to get out of bed, to go someplace, for feeling the sun on your face, for the ability to hear the birds chirping, for having taste buds, etc.
It can be very simple – “I’m grateful for the jolt the coffee offered me this morning to wake me up- and the machine that made it so delicious.” You can have gratitude that you were able and willing to fold and put away your clean laundry or that you even have clean laundry, or the machine that washes the laundry or the $ to do the laundry.
It can be monumental - like attending a wedding or graduation, for meeting my 2nd husband almost 13 years ago- on a country dance floor in Tucson, AZ. For me, folding my laundry and putting it away is also monumental. (Yes, I could use some more excitement in my life,) Some days we may be grateful for waking up or receiving a kind word or a smile from a stranger. Other days it might be we have freedom from pain or just less pain.
Knowing you have “homework” of finding something to be grateful for will trickle into your brain and you’ll begin to do or find more things for your list. Awareness and gratitude works that way. Once you get started, even the pessimistic nature within us can be tempered by the things all around us we may be taking for granted. Awareness is the tool we are using here.
As Mental Health Awareness Month comes to an end, we know it doesn’t really end. As conscious humans, we are empowered with the seemingly never-ending practice of doing those things we know will help us to be healthy in sound and body.
“The mind and body are like parallel universes. Anything that happens in the mental universe must leave tracts in the physical one”. Deepak Chopra.
Thanks for reading my musings on this topic and may the lovely, lengthening days of summer bring you all the mental and physical health you can handle!
With Gratitude,
Lorraine
